


wide worlds

by deniigiq



Series: Lighter Fluid Verse [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Heroes & Nemeses, Heroism, Questioning, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: Sergeant Barnes told Peter that all his heroes were dead and the world was nothing but a cesspit of morally gray human beings who weren’t worth holding up as any kind of idol, as that was just asking to be disappointed.(Peter takes a poll about heroes and nemeses.)
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: Lighter Fluid Verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523357
Comments: 33
Kudos: 807





	wide worlds

Wade said that his hero was the girl in the El Paso taco commercial. He too, wanted both hard and soft taco shells, he told Peter sagely.

“Apples and oranges don’t gotta compete,” he explained to Peter, with a hand on his shoulder. “People are individuals, Pete. We can hold each other up to be the best versions of ourselves.”

Okay, first of all, that wasn’t what Peter had asked and second of all, Peter was pretty sure that El Paso wasn’t making a statement about world peace through this airbrushed child.

“Of course not, sugar. You gotta read between the lines,” Wade said.

Of a tortilla commercial.

“Art is a reflection of society,” Wade said.

Uh-huh.

It sure was.

Hey, Peter suddenly had homework to do.

May said that her hero was Ben. Then she corrected herself and said that her hero was Peter. Then she corrected herself and said that her hero was soy yogurt.

May had a lot of heroes.

Peter decided that making the top five was pretty good.

Mr. Wilson claimed that he had no single hero. His heroes were all the vets who picked themselves up after their service, who made peace with their trauma, and who worked to find happiness within their new realities, in whatever way that looked like for them as individuals.

“Okay, sure. But you have to pick three, maximum,” Peter said.

“Three?” Mr. Wilson said. “Kind of steep, Pete. How about six?”

Peter would not have six. He would have three.

“Okay, three,” Mr. Wilson relented. “My mom, obviously. My sociology prof in undergrad. And, uh. Hm. Maybe Nat?”

Ms. Romanoff?

“The one and only,” Mr. Wilson said.

Peter checked the corners of the room for cameras. There were none. He narrowed his eyes.

This was a set-up, he decided, leaving Mr. Wilson to think about his answers. He’d offer the question again later, away from prying eyes.

“Vaccines,” Cap said immediately.

“You get three,” Peter reminded him.

“Kay. Polio. Measles. Small pox,” Cap said. “Can I have five?”

“I mean, sure?” Peter said.

“Perfect. Add the flu shot and the Epipen on there,” Cap said.

Peter stared.

“Can I have six?” Cap asked.

Uh?

“Because I’m just sayin’, the internet’s pretty great.”

Okay, they were getting a little off the tracks here.

Sergeant Barnes told Peter that all his heroes were dead and the world was nothing but a cesspit of morally gray human beings who weren’t worth holding up as any kind of idol, as that was just asking to be disappointed.

“Steve,” Peter pointed out.

Sergeant Barnes scoffed.

“Man disappoints me daily, hon,” he said. “He put his fuckin’ hand in the blender this week to clean it. While it was plugged in, Peter. It was _plugged in_.”

“Sam,” Peter countered.

“Sam calls me an asshole and squirts me with a waterbottle whenever I touch his laundry. I’m tellin’ ya, kiddo. Have no heroes.”

Hm. That was no fun.

“Oh, man. Lucky’s my hero,” Hawkeye said. “I want to be Lucky. When I die, I want to come back as half the dog Lucky is.”

He frowned.

“Okay, maybe not half. Although, if I had to pick a half, I’d pick the front.”

Peter was exiting this conversation.

Matt piled a fuckload of books on his desk, then went into Foggy’s office to yank books right out from under him.

He arranged these (stolen books on bottom) in front of Peter and started rattling off names of people who Peter presumed were the various legal professionals who’d written these books.

“And, really. The best of them all—”

“Thurgood Marshall,” Foggy and Karen groaned at the same time.

“My fuckin’ _dad_ , you assholes,” Matt shot back at them. “My actual father. How dare you. How fucking _dare_ you assume that—”

“Then Thurgood Marshall,” Foggy said, counting off his hand. “Then Bess Mahoney. Then Father Lantom. Then Karen. Then Captain America. And then maybe me, but probably the hummus guy at the farmer’s market.”

Matt gawked at him.

“I—you—Foggy, you can’t be serious,” he said. “I’d never put Bess over you, man.”

Foggy paused in his chair-leaning to look a little misty-eyed. He put his formerly-counting hand on his heart.

“You mean, that bro?” he said.

“Never anyone over you, bro,” Matt said, just as thick-throated and apparently misty-eyed.

“Oh my god, bro.”

Jesus.

Karen voiced the retch Peter’s brain was making.

“Who’s Thurgood Marshall?” he asked her.

“Some judge,” she said.

“SOME. JUDGE?” Matt roared.

And they were back.

Wade wanted to change his answer, he told Peter.

His hero was the DoorDash app.

Which was pretty good, Peter would give him that.

Peter decided that his heroes were Ben and May. He didn’t need any more than that. He told this to Mr. Castle who said that his hero was Max when he ate shit off the floor.

“And Micro, sometimes, I guess,” he said. “You know, when he’s not sending me fuckin’ cat memes.”

Peter watched him scrub bullets.

“What about your wife?” he asked.

“Yeah, her too,” Mr. Castle said.

“And your kids?”

“Yeah, sure. Them, too.”

“Where does Max rank with them?” Peter asked, rubbing Max’s ears to make sure he knew he was loved.

Mr. Castle considered the dog.

“I dunno. Like, twelfth or something?”

“You only listed five.”

“Yeah, probably twelfth. You’re a useless dog, Max.”

Max wagged his tail.

Peter wasn’t sure Mr. Castle understood the parameters of the question.

Wade wanted to change his answer again.

Peter told him he wasn’t allowed to.

Wade told him that his new hero was ‘fuck your rules’ and then announced that the new question was ‘who’s your nemesis?’ He grabbed Peter by the scruff of the neck and dropped him off the roof.

It was fine.

Peter caught himself before landing in the target dumpster.

He hung there, thinking, though.

That _was_ a pretty good question.

“Time,” Mr. Stark said. “Everyone’s nemesis is time. And oxidation. And if we’re talkin’ like, _sub_ -nemeses, we could get into free radicals and cell growth and—”

“You only get three,” Peter said. “You’ve gotta rank them.”

Mr. Stark stared at him for a long time.

“War?” he tried.

“You can’t be complicit in it,” Peter said.

Mr. Stark thought again for another long time.

“Bleu cheese,” he decided fiercely.

That was better.

“You got two left,” Peter told him.

“You know those places with ‘watch the step’ signs?’” Dr. Banner asked.

“Yeah.”

“You know the ones that are always like, on the wall or the door coming in instead of on the step itself?”

“Yeah.”

“Bastards. All of them. My nemeses. Those and those moments when you can’t find your phone, but you’re holding it? Right to hell. Both of them can exit my life right to hell, Peter.”

Peter liked how they were moving from objects to human action with this question now. That was pretty cool.

A metaphysical nemesis was like, the worst kind of nemesis, he could agree with that.

“Any cat which my cat hates is my mortal enemy,” Ms. Romanoff said without blinking.

She’d never let Peter play with her cat before. But now, she allowed Peter to hold her cat in his lap and give her all sorts of pets.

Her cat was very nice. Very serene with huge blue eyes.

She didn’t look like she had mortal enemies. But neither did Peter, so that was okay.

“Is a mortal enemy the same thing as a nemesis?” Peter asked.

Ms. Romanoff pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

“Depends on the enemy,” she said. “If they’re strong enough, maybe.”

Ah.

Good to know.

“Uuuuuuh, like…I dunno. Water, I guess?” Johnny said as he scraped ketchup and onions off the bun of his burger.

“Not good enough,” Peter told him over the lip of his coke.

“You?”

“Me? I’m your nemesis, Johnny?” Peter said.

“Well, you could be,” Johnny said. “Do you want to be? We can be nemeses for a week or so. You know, test it out and see how we like it?”

Peter shook some ice into his mouth and crunched on it, thinking.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess we can try.”

“What, now?”

“Well, when else would we start?”

“Okay,” Johnny said. “Do something nemesis-y.”

Peter crunched more ice.

“You’re weird,” he said.

“You’re weirder,” Johnny volleyed back through a bite of burger.

“This isn’t working,” Peter said. “Let’s stop.”

“No, we can do this,” Johnny said. “Here, try harder.”

“Okay, you’ve got small ears.”

Johnny froze, mid-bite.

“I do?” he asked.

“They’re a little small,” Peter said.

“ _How_ small?” Johnny demanded.

This didn’t feel like nemeses.

“Nevermind. New question: who’s your hero?” Peter asked.

Johnny settled back in his seat and picked up some fries.

“Mmm, probably Jesse Owens,” he said. “But after him, Han Solo, and then after him, Winne-the-Pooh.”

Peter stared.

“That’s sexist, Johnny,” he said. “Those are all guys.”

Johnny thought about it.

“No, you’re right. Miss Piggie’s way better than Winnie-the-Pooh,” he said.

Better. Much better.

“Who’s _your_ nemesis?” MJ snapped.

“Me. Next question,” Peter said.

“That’s not fair.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it _is_. Answer the question, MJ.”

“Fine. Mine’s me, too.”

“Ned?”

Ned looked up from the Starship Enterprise’s semi-constructed lego control center.

“Mine’s me, too,” he said.

“We can’t all be our own nemeses,” Peter said.

“Yeah, we can,” MJ said.

“No, we can’t,” Peter said.

“Can mine be climate change then?” Ned asked.

Yes. Yes, it could.

Peter huffed expectantly at MJ. She wasn’t afraid of him.

“Mine’s still me,” she said. “You change yours first.”

Ugh. Fine.

“I’ve got a whole rogue gallery, pick any of them,” Peter said.

MJ glared.

“Okay, it’s cilantro. Is that better for you?”

It was.

“Mine’s still me,” MJ said.

“But you said—”

“No, you said we can’t _all_ be our own nemeses. Now I’m the only one who’s my own nemesis. Get on my level, Parker.”

Goddamnit.

Wade found Peter and said that he didn’t have any nemeses at the moment because his new year’s resolution was not to hold any hate in his heart and anyways, he didn’t have energy for nemeses when he was so busy being everyone else’s.

But in the meantime, his new hero was AT&T because the lady at the store had helped him switch to a new phone plan.

Peter wondered if maybe he should change one of his heroes to Wade because no one else yet had picked so many ordinary people as their heroes.

“How many heroes can we have?” he asked Wade.

“Psh. What kind of question is that, kid?” Wade grumbled. “Why you always limiting folks, huh? I got a new hero every day. Hell, every minute. Christ, stop micromanaging me. Jesus. Anyways, I got a better question for you: if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it fall?”

Peter stared at him.

“I want more heroes,” he announced instead.

“Alright, fine. Go make some,” Wade sniffed. “See if I care.”

“Trees are my hero,” Peter told him.

“You got dumb heroes,” Wade said.

“Fish with no eyes are my heroes, too,” Peter decided.

“Might as well add birds that can’t fly to your list then,” Wade said.

Peter rubbed his lips together.

“Everyone’s my hero,” he declared.

“Psh.”

“No. They are!”

“Psssssh.”

“Alright, fine. People who miss trains are my hero. And people who trip on nothing. And people who spill coffee and people who cry at bus stops and birds that can’t fly and fish that can’t see and dogs that like pizza are all my heroes.”

Wade squinted his mask eyes down at Peter like he thought he was the weird one here.

“I guess you’re allowed those,” he said.

“All at once,” Peter hummed.

He liked the thought. It made his chest warm.

“New York City’s my hero,” he said.

“That’s just like you,” Wade sighed.

Maybe.

But it sure felt nice anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> my little sis used to wander around taking polls about people's opinions on random shit before making her own decision and I feel like that's something Peter would do as a youth. I'm calling this the second piece in the 'Peter Asks the World' series. The first is **flora by many names** in the DFV.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blue Satin Sashes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23186167) by [lxghtwoodlxve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lxghtwoodlxve/pseuds/lxghtwoodlxve)




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